Burnt
by Final Hikari
Summary: Out of all the battles Asbel Lhant faced when trying to save Richard, and even out of all the difficulties that went along with being the Lord of Lhant, none of that compared to the hardship of making cupcakes.


Burnt

Asbel Lhant had a dangerously limited knowledge of how to do anything and nearly everything in a kitchen. As it turned out, the oven timer was obsolete. Asbel realized it when he looked at the oven and saw flames. He jumped out of his chair, sending it to crash down upon the floor.

"Sophie!" he shouted urgently. "Get the bucket!"

Scarcely a few seconds later, the young girl dashed into the kitchen with the bucket of cold water they prepared before they started baking. Asbel ran to get the oven mitts and motioned for her to come closer. He took a deep breath before reaching between the flames and pulled the door open. A cloud of black smoke filled the kitchen as Sophie dumbed the water on the flaming pastries.

"Do we need more water?" Sophie asked as she tried to get a look at their cupcakes through the smoke.

"I think that was enough," Asbel sighed as he turned the oven off.

"How did they catch on fire?" Sophie asked curiously.

"I don't know…cooking is difficult," he said dismally.

He lifted the pan of blackened and soggy cupcakes out of the oven with a grimace. Worst of all, they weren't even chocolate cupcakes that got a little too dark. Before the fire, they were white, vanilla flavored cupcakes.

"Maybe we should ask Frederick to help?" she suggested.

"We can't, he's off visiting Cheria at that camp in Velanik," he said as she shook his head.

Sophie glanced up at the clock on the wall. "If we start now, we'll have time to make another batch before Richard gets here."

Asbel dumped the soggy muffins out on the table with the other failed batches. Sophie's idea to make cupcakes for when the monarch arrived had been a good and kind idea, but it was turning out to be far more difficult than he had anticipated. It did not help that Richard's visit fell upon days where Lady Kerri, Frederick, Cheria, and even the maid were not present in Lhant for various reasons; there was little hope of getting help with the baking.

He rolled his sleeves up and surveyed the mess in the kitchen. There were dirty bowls and mixing spoons littered in the sink and on the counters, but there were still some supplies that were clean.

"Let's start!" he said in determination.

After only a handful of mishaps involving long, purple hairs where they did not belong and Asbel's remarkably frequent habit of adding the wrong ingredients, they had a fresh bowl of batter finished. There was one incident where he added a cup of salt instead of sugar, but they had managed to get most of it out of the mixture.

"They just looked so similar…" he said lamely.

"We'll just add some extra sugar and icing," Sophie suggested.

Ten scoops of the finished batter ended up in the cupcake pan, while one ended up on the floor and another up on the ceiling. They stared up at it incredulously for a few moments, both rather surprised that it had gotten so high. By the merciless virtues of gravity, a large blob of it fell down on Asbel's head when he looked down to keep working.

"How much time do we have before Richard gets here?" Asbel asked as he slid the pan into the oven, trying to stop drops of batter from his hair from dripping on the oven door and burning.

The last thing they needed was an added fire hazard.

"A little more than half an hour," she said simply.

"Alright, I'm going to wash this goo out of my hair," he said as he hurried out of the kitchen.

_'What a pity,' _Lambda chimed in, his voice filling Asbel's often empty mind. _'You really are a dough head right now; why not enjoy the sense in this pleasantly simultaneous literal and metaphorical way?'_

"I'm just going to ignore that," Asbel muttered in a disgruntled response.

The sugary batter took longer to get out of his hair than he would have liked. He kept an eye on the clock as he washed all of the mess out, determined not to have another incident of flaming cupcakes. Unfortunately for the young lord, Sophie came dashing up the stairs and knocking on the bathroom door when he was barely finished.

"Asbel, the soldiers said Richard's transport is about to enter Lhant early," she called out.

Asbel went to look up and winced when he abruptly hit his head on the towel rack. He rubbed the top of his head while listening to Lambda laugh at him expense.

"Keep an eye on the cupcakes, I'll be right down!" he replied as he willed the entity in his head to quiet down.

"Okay!" Sophie said, though her voice was already fading down the stairs.

"You're not helping," Asbel mumbled as he hastily dried his hair.

_'I did not realize that the subject of my amusement was supposed to have audience influence.'_

By the time he got back to the kitchen, Sophie had gone to greet the guards at the front door. The alarm was already blaring when he walked in, which left him to scramble for the oven mitts. Fortunately, there were no flames in the oven, though it still hadn't baked their creations entirely normally. It seemed likely that it would need some form of repair or maintenance after the flames.

The tops of the cupcakes were a bit darker than they should have been, but since they were not on fire, he saw it as a victory. He pointedly remembered to turn the oven off before opening it; there had been more than one incident where he left it on to run all night and depleted the house's cryas supply.

From there, he grabbed a container and pushed all the burnt and soggy failed attempts into it. He quickly put the lid onto it and hit it behind one of the appliances on the counter, eager to keep all the failed attempts a secret.

Sophie poked her head into the kitchen. "Those were the preliminary guards; Richard will be here in a minute or two."

Asbel hurried over to the ice box and to retrieve the icing. "Could you help me ice a few of these?"

"We aren't supposed to ice them until they're cool…" she pointed out.

"Just three then," he insisted. "I don't want anyone to know that the tops got burned…again."

"Okay," she agreed as she hurriedly got an icing knife out of the drawer.

Asbel mimicked her motion and got a generous portion of chocolate icing on the side of his knife. He quickly turned toward one of the cupcakes, but the knife was carelessly left at a poor angle. The icing hit the counter in a forlorn blob.

He frowned and grabbed the cupcake. He held it right beside the bowl before attempting to ice it. He awkwardly tried to spread the chocolate icing around, but ended up getting more on his hands than the cupcake. There were still several areas that were barren of icing. It didn't help that the icing was warming up and becoming closer to a liquid.

He glanced over to Sophie, who already finished icing the other two cupcakes. They were flawlessly iced without any bare areas, despite the unfavorable temperature. She even already had little crown shaped sprinkles on them.

"I'll take care of that one," she volunteered. "You should go answer the door."

Almost as though on cue, they heard a loud knock on the door and the formal announcement from one of the guards. Asbel dropped the knife and dashed out of the kitchen. He crashed through the door beside the stairs and hurried to the front door with no regard to the chocolate icing on his hands.

He pulled the door open and grinned at the sight of the king and his royal guards. Richard returned the smile, though he looked curiously bemused at the sight of the young lord's dripping wet hair and chocolate covered hands.

"Richard, it's great to see you again!" he said brightly.

The monarch glanced down at the chocolaty hand thoughtlessly extended toward him. "I'm glad to see you as well, Asbel."

Richard took a step closer to him and opted for a quick embrace rather than a chocolaty handshake. Asbel awkwardly tried to return it as he tried not to get any chocolate on the king's cape – or worse, his hair. Richard stepped back at the same moment Sophie peered out of the kitchen curiously.

"Richard!" she said as she waved a cupcake. "We made cupcakes, come try one."

"Ah, that explains the chocolate," Richard said with a small laugh.

"We had a lot of trouble making them. We prepared a bucket of water and everything in case of a fire," Sophie explained as she set the plate of cupcakes down on the table and promptly took one.

"I thought we weren't going to talk about those," Asbel remarked as he walked over to the sink.

"They look like they'll be delicious," Richard said as he took a seat at the table.

"I wanted to use little pieces of crablettes for sprinkles, but no one thought that would taste good with chocolate," Sophie continued, sounding slightly disappointed at the thought.

Asbel smiled at the sight in the kitchen. Even if their situation wasn't ideal, things were getting better. Sophie was becoming more adjusted to living a more ordinary life in Lhant without the burdens of constant combat. The three of them didn't all see each other quite as often as they would have liked, but things were gradually falling into place.

Nevertheless, while the two of them were preoccupied, he reached into one of the cabinets to grab foil. He covered the least burnt final batch; despite his previous triumph at not having a second fire, they weren't particularly appetizing looking without the icing on top. It didn't take long to get them covered; no one would have to know about his struggles with the cupcakes.

His gaze strayed up to the ceiling for a long moment. There was only one potential problem that remained. Everything would be fine, presuming that those devious drips stayed on the ceiling and far from Richard's hair.

* * *

I'm starting to realize that in almost every fandom I spam with my ramblings, something prompts me to torture the characters who don't know how to cook.

Anyway…another of the oneshots I did from the suggested prompts of you wonderful readers! :D The prompted for this one was cupcakes, suggested by the wonderful **Dr. Meh**. Thank you for giving me a happy prompt, lil sis. XD

I have two to go and the next two prompts are golden and ring.

I also might add more to The King's Crown. I'm just deciding if I want to keep creeping along close to canon or just be like "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" and frolic in shippery. XD


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